


you're drunk on your awe to me

by jadeddiva



Series: sign your name across my heart [4]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 17:52:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is his North star, and he will follow her wherever she leads him.   Hook & Emma, post-battle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're drunk on your awe to me

**Author's Note:**

> I have been dealing with an insane amount of stress in my life and writing this, and knowing that there are people who like it, is helping me cope. Thank you to those of you who read :)

“It’s just a scratch,” Hook tells her, because he knows it to be true, but that doesn’t stop the frown that spreads across Emma’s face, nor does it stop her hands from reaching for his vest (she looks worried, but she always looks worried these days so he tries not to think too much about it).

“Just shut up and let me see,” Emma says, leaning over him, her hair falling in a veil around her face.  The blonde strands brush against his eyelids (he has to close his eyes, he doesn’t want to see her over him, not like this, not here not now not in such a public place) and he inhales sharply at the contact.

Her fingers make quick work of the buckles but it isn’t until they slide under his shirt and touch the flesh beneath that he flinches.  He wears layers like armor and she is breaching his defenses with an ease that speaks to how much he cares about her, because no one has touched him like this in a very long time.

He wants to tell her, “Can’t wait to get me undressed, love?” because it comes to mind, because it’s what he used to do but he can’t.  Not now.  Now when she knows how much he cares for her. 

Not now, when the last thing he wants to hear is her constant casual deflection.  This scratch won’t kill him but her words might.

“It was just wood, love,” he says instead, his tongue betraying him by falling into his customary pattern of speech.  “The spear tip broke off and the boy was angry enough to get another jab in.”  He clucks his tongue, trying to ignore the fact that her fingers are still near the wound, fingertips pressed against his stomach, causing it to flutter like the first time he kissed a girl or the first time he set foot on a boat.

Hook looks at Emma’s face instead.  She’s concentrating on him so hard that he reaches down, covers her hands with his own.  “Emma,” he says softly.  “It’s not deadly.”

“How do you know?” she asks (does her voice sound desperate? He knows he’s not losing that much blood but there is something about the tone that makes me wonder). 

“I broke the tip of the spear myself,” he tells her.  “I’m not even losing blood.  It’s just a scratch.  It’ll heal, and it’ll scar, and I’ve got plenty of those already so what’s one more, eh, love?”

The words seem to break Emma from whatever mood she was in, and she withdraws her hands, rocks backs on her heels.  Hook looks at the wound himself – not too deep, fairly superficial, as long as he keeps it clean it will heal soon – and sighs.  “I would be much obliged if you would help me tend to it,” he says, because he knows it will be difficult where it’s located and with his one hand.  He can manage, if need be, though it shames him to ask for help. 

“Let me see if Mary Margaret has anything,” Emma says.  She stands up, and he watches her head off, towards the others gathered nearby.   Hook takes a deep breath, and tries to will his hand to stop shaking before (if) Emma returns.

...

_They join up with the Dark One and Regina, which means new forms of magic and new ideas.  Tinkerbell comes through with the pixie dust, Regina finds some way to cross realms, and the Dark One has a plan for condemning Pan to eternal torment.  Hook doesn’t have difficulty with any of this as long as it’s what Emma wants (and as long as Pan is destroyed or at least trapped once and for all)._

_“Are you okay with this?” Emma asks.  “This plan, are you sure?” She stands so close to him and speaks so softly that only he can hear her._

_“Are you sure?” he asks back.  Emma’s mouth is a thin line of worry, and he wants so desperately to reach out and touch her – her arm, her shoulder, her hand, her face, his fingers itch with the desire to somehow steady her as they approach this final battle._

_“I want to get Henry back,” she says.  “I want to go home.”_

_Home is a foreign concept because his home is his ship and his ship goes anywhere and everywhere he wants it to go, and right now all he wants is to go where she is.  He feels lost and foolish and she is his North star: he will follow wherever she leads him._

_And if she leads him to his death in Neverland, so be it._

_It has been two nights and one day since Hook told his darkest secret in the depths of that cursed cave.   He has not repeated it to anyone, only spoken in the broadest terms about love and duty and what is right.  Because this is what is right: love can be selfish but it can also be selfless, and it’s been such a long time since he’s thought of someone other than himself that he feels rusty and out of practice.  But since he’s known Emma, things have shifted inside him in more ways than one, and if she is reunited with her family, then he will be content (no matter how broken he may be in the end)._

_“What do you want, Killian?” she asks and he is so surprised that she used his name – not Hook – that his heart stutter-stops and he can’t answer. He still thinks of her kiss, of her feel of her lips and the way her body fit so well against his own and revels in his own damnation._

_“You know what I want,” is what he wants to say, but he doesn’t say that._

_“I want you to be happy,” is what he says.   “My allegiance is yours.”_

_Emma smiles a tight smile, her eyes tired.  She reaches for him – his hand – and squeezes it.   It is an uncharacteristic gesture for a girl who keeps herself so locked up, but he remembers when she reached for him before – to kiss him, to hold his hand, to be with him – that its pleasure mixed with pain when she touches him._

_He tries to smile, but he’s not sure it meets his eyes._

…

As he waits for Emma to return, he shifts his position and his priorities: his ship.

“Regina,” he calls out softly, and the Evil Queen listens.  She turns, and walks towards him, prone on the ground, propped up against a rock.

“My ship, Regina,” he says calmly, shifting back into his pirate demeanor.  It’s easy to do since he’s worn it so long that it’s a part of him, just like his hook. 

“What about your ship?” she asks. 

“Seems a shame to leave such a fine vessel here in the wilds of Neverland,” he points out.  

“Who said anything about leaving it, Hook?” Regina responds, with a look in her eye that tells him that there may be a price attached to this request that he may not want to pay.  Hook opens his mouth to respond but Emma brushes by Regina without a backwards glance, coming to kneel by Hook’s side once more.

“His ship comes with us,” she says.  She lifts up his shift again and starts to apply a salve to his wound.  “He helped us get Henry back.  I don’t care if you shrink it or magic it there yourself, the ship comes.”

Regina seems affronted at Emma’s words, but it seems that the only thing that’s magic in all of this is the name Henry, and apparently Hook getting speared by a Lost Boy means he risked his life and if that means that he gets to bring his ship back with him, so be it.  There is very little sacred to the Evil Queen save that boy, and Emma seems to always remember that when others forget.

Perhaps because the only thing sacred to Emma as well is her family.

Regina acquiesces with a nod of her head, turning back towards the Dark One and the others, which includes Neal.  Neal, who watches Hook like he will snatch up Emma and run.

While the thought is tempting, it is less likely to benefit him in the long run.

“Thank you.”

Emma nods, concentrating on bandaging his wound with some sort of white cloth.   He takes the opportunity to look at her, cherish her face and the way her brow furrows when she is busy with something, the way the light falls on her hair and makes her shine like the sun.

At any other time he might wonder if it is the pain that him poetic, but it is just her.  She makes him into someone he hasn’t been in a long time – softer edges and lighter words – and he loves her the more for it.

“You helped us with Henry,” she tells him as she finishes her bandaging and lowers his shirt.  She buckles his vest again, and helps him back into his jacket.  Reaching for his hand, she stands, and pulls him up with her.  His hook brushes her hip, and he quickly apologizes.

Emma looks at him, long and hard, her hand still holding his.  She squeezes it once more.  “Let’s go home,” she says, turning and heading towards the rest on the far side of the shore. 

She is his North star, and he will follow her wherever she leads him.


End file.
